Room-Temperature Nitric Oxide Gas Sensors Based on NiO/SnO2 Heterostructures

Nitric oxide (NO) is a very well-known indoor pollutant, and high concentrations of it in the atmosphere lead to acid rain. Thus, there is great demand for NO sensors that have the ability to work at room temperature. In this work, NiO/SnO2 heterostructures have been prepared via the polyol process and were tested against different concentrations of NO gas at room temperature. The structural and morphological characteristics of the heterostructures were examined using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, respectively, while the ratio of NiO to SnO2 was determined through the use of energy-dispersive spectrometry. The effects of both pH and thermal annealing on the morphological, structural and gas-sensing properties of the heterostructure were investigated. It was found that the morphology of the heterostructures consisted of rod-like particles with different sizes, depending on the temperature of thermal annealing. Moreover, NiO/SnO2 heterostructures synthesized with pH = 8 and annealed at 900 °C showed a response of 1.8% towards 2.5 ppm NO at room temperature. The effects of humidity as well as of stability on the gas sensing performance were also investigated.